


Finder's Fee

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Prompt Fics [80]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Angst, Catherine makes a brief cameo, Episode: s01e17 Face Lift, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I really slacked on the ladies in this one cause Sara's only mentioned, Nick Stokes Whump, Poisoning, Radiation Sickness, Uranium Poisoning, as does Brass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24726088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Greg and Grissom told him he had nothing to worry about, but what if Nick had actually gotten uranium poisoning from that one garden gnome?
Relationships: Gil Grissom & Nick Stokes, Greg Sanders & Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown & Nick Stokes
Series: Prompt Fics [80]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540795
Comments: 15
Kudos: 20





	Finder's Fee

**Author's Note:**

> for an anon on tumblr who asked me a while back to write a fic where a preferably younger Nick gets exposed to something at a scene--and then I got to thinking about 1x17 as a bit of a "what if?"
> 
> slight warnings just for some gross bodily descriptions of our poor sick boy and vague mentions of his childhood trauma.

“Tell me, am I radiating a green glow?”

If he’s making jokes about it, it must not be _that_ big of a deal, right?

Greg said he’d be okay. 

Then again, of course _Greg_ would say that, especially after Nick had caught him slacking off in the lab. Mr. “Not a Single Fuck in the World” Gregory-- _damn why can’t he remember his middle name_ \--Sanders who is so lost in life that the sparkling speckles in a sea of neon purple probably looked like some kind of kaleidoscope picture instead of the close-up on the particles that would make up Nick’s tombstone. 

“You’ll be fine, Silkwood,” Grissom tells him. 

Somehow, even Grissom’s words aren’t even a comfort. He only vaguely gets the coy reference to some movie with Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell about radiation poisoning, a movie he wouldn’t have been allowed to see in any other circumstance than the one at the time of its release, a movie night in which his parents couldn’t find a babysitter and he had somehow been able to convince them to let him become a third wheel. 

He didn’t tell them why and didn’t even mind how _boring_ it was to his twelve year old mind. 

It beat the alternative.

He scrubs harder.

“What's uranium doing on a murder weapon anyway?” Nick growls.

“Well, before Peter Parker was bit by that radioactive spider and became Spider-man--” That reference, he gets and loses himself for a split second in a fantasy about swinging around the neon signs in Las Vegas.

It’d almost be worth it.

“--back in the fifties, oxidized uranium flecks were used as color enhancers.”

“Color enhancers?” he turns off the water, the wheels in his head turning as to what color enhancers could be used for--“Like paint?”

“Paints, dyes, glazes…” Grissom confirms. “And since our guy was killed in a pottery store…”

“Say no more,” Nick nods, his new purpose in mind, he brushes past Grissom and passes the DNA lab on his way to the locker room to put on a jumpsuit--just as an extra precaution--and watches as Greg rolls his way around the lab, playing drums in the air to the beat of the softly-blasting, unintelligible music playing behind the glass walls. Nick wishes he could be as carefree, wishes he could slack off and lose himself in the rhythm of mind-numbing labor in lab work instead of constantly think, think, _think,_ else the opportunity to serve justice for the victims and their families is washed down the drain like the water that’s still evaporating off of his hands.

He wishes he could get a little “lost in life.”

Maybe even with...

Hojem. His middle name was “Hojem.” 

* * *

He uses a Geiger counter and locates the source of the uranium. 

A gnome. 

A fucking _garden gnome._

With obvious evidence--a small piece chipped off of the bottom and in its place, the victim’s blood and some individual hairs.

“You gotta be kidding me.”

He inhales just as deeply as he exhales a half sigh, half chuckle. 

A single breath that doesn’t even cross his mind, but in weeks to come, he’ll realize is the root cause of the problems he’ll suffer for weeks to come. 

The finder’s fee.

* * *

He almost feels like a kid again.

Well, maybe not a _kid,_ he far from desires being that small and fragile on both a physical and mental level, but he does reminisce on that carefree innocence, when he would often goof around with his friends and forget about all of the weight of growing up.

And he accomplishes that with a basketball game.

With his friend.

“Turning into some sort of bobble head there, Stokes? Need to put you on a desk and let you sort things out?” Warrick pants.

His shit-talking friend, but he knows it’s all in jest. A symptom of the testosterone sweating out of every pore in both men’s bodies, dribbling onto the court as fervently as the orange ball that is volleyed between Warrick’s hands.

He doesn’t think about the tight air, dry and just plain _hot_ that his breath is unable to cut through, he takes a moment to heave as he’s bent over before lifting up, the slightest updraft offering the slightest relief. 

He doesn’t think about the wet fabric of his tank top slapping against his chest. He had just bought that shirt a little over a month ago, and it had been a tight fit.

He doesn’t think about the idea that he had lost some weight, he had been working out a lot--though he wonders why his muscle mass hasn’t seemed to grow with that. 

Instead he thinks about the present moment, this basketball game, and thinks of the internal desire to _win._

He focuses on the sound of the ball slamming onto the concrete. A reverberating echo, amplified in stereo sound in throbbing ear drums. His hands wave in front of him, slow, motioning to grab the bouncing object, but he misses with each swipe.

The squeaking of shoes as they each dare to pivot out of their stalemate, throw the other man off balance. But they’re equally matched, though Nick’s a little slower on the draw than he’d have liked. 

His own breath, labored, though he doesn’t realize just how ragged it is. Irregular. 

Just like his heartbeat. 

It’s a tied game, the sun is setting, time is dwindling before they have to hit the showers and clock in. 

“I’ll show you bobbling,” Nick’s words slur, but he shrugs it off as exhaustion from the long game, along with the nonsensical comeback that he internally cringes at. 

Warrick doesn’t seem to pay attention either, his eyes look past Nick, at the hoop that looms above. 

Nick sees the trajectory of the ball, sees the intent behind Warrick’s eyes, and leaps to knock the blurry orange sphere out of the air.

And falls.

Well, more like _crashes,_ really. 

Long before Warrick had even shoved him out of his way, as he was able to complete his leap, and dunk the ball that would bounce off of Nick’s head moments later, while Warrick did a celebratory lap around the court. 

He curls around the knotted wad in his stomach, but its ends stretch and pull his fingers and toes apart, unable to re-contract in the heat that seems to bloat his extremities.

The world seems to teeter as his eyes follow the dribble of the ball that shrinks away, he can feel his eyelashes sticking together in a bead of sweat as they flutter.

“Woooooooo baby! And the crowd goes _wild!”_ Warrick exclaims with a clap before collecting the winnings that sat on the inside of Nick’s overturned ball cap. “When you gonna learn to stop bettin’ against me, Stokes?” 

His footsteps are thunderous as he approaches Nick, still on the ground, watching the clouds expand to cover the setting sun, his own eyelids drawing the curtains, the threat of a sleepless void luring him in--

Something cold, and wet, and _sticky_ is poured onto him, both a refreshing re-hydration and an annoying aftermath for the literally sore loser writhing on the ground.

“Ah, what the hell, Rick!?” Nick sputters, holding his hands up to both block the sun and block any more fluid from raining down on him. 

“Looking a little dry there, buddy. Hope you didn’t exert yourself too much, looks like droppin’ dimes ain’t your game,” Warrick chuckles, before grabbing Nick’s hand and arm to help him up.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. Sun was getting in my eyes, that’s all,” Nick pants. He playfully shoves his friend away before he hunches over, hands on his knees to catch his breath. He wipes the mixture of Gatorade and sweat from his forehead, but more falls down in its place. 

His knees wobble, one collapses and his hand breaks the fall. 

Warrick crouches down, gives his partner a gentle shake. Nick’s head lolls, he resets with a long blink. 

“Hey...you good?” Warrick asks in a low voice.

“Yeah. I’m good,” Nick claps Warrick’s shoulder with a forced smile and wink, before getting up and stumbling towards his duffel bag. 

“Race you to the showers,” he tries to joke, when he’s really racing to go relieve the urine burning in his bladder.

* * *

The witnesses had been interviewed, evidence logged and dropped for processing, and they were awaiting their turn in autopsy. 

Good as time as any for a break. 

Nick leans back in the chair, a comfortable sigh daring to exhale with the relief of taking a load off his very stiff shoulders. 

He rolls them, but the tension isn’t relieved. 

Not only that, but something seems to be slithering up his spine, and suddenly the back of the chair isn’t offering enough support. 

“Hey, toss me a pillow from the couch, wouldja?” he asks Warrick.

Warrick nods at the empty space in front of Nick as he tosses the pillow to him.

“You waiting on an order or something? Never seen you empty handed.”

Nick stuffs the pillow behind his back, it offers some comfort, but not enough to settle him. 

“Didn’t pack anything. Not hungry,” Nick shrugs, his fingers dance their way through his hair and he grips, as if he could uproot the stinging headache assaulting his head. 

“You? Not hungry? You getting sick or something?”

Nick shakes his head with a small frown.

“Here,” Warrick tears apart his sandwich, offering half across the table. “You know, if my Grandma had a look at you, she’d tie you down to that chair and give you a seven course feast.”

Nick outstretches a hand to accept, with a half smile.

“You are looking a bit...twiggy there,” Warrick points out. “Thought you were going to the gym every day?”

“I am...but maybe I should really hit the bells after this shift,” Nick muses, using his propped elbow to flex, but nothing rises out of it. “Been focusing more on my cardio.”

His fingers are just about to touch the bread when his stomach squelches.

He feels a movement in his bowels.

His palm flattens, with a shake of his head, motioning for Warrick to keep the offered half.

“Shit,” poor choice of words, but he rises from his chair as cautiously as he can, before swiftly walking to the door, doing his best to squeeze and hold himself together until he can get to the bathroom.

“Where’s the fire, Stokes?” Warrick calls out.

“Bathroom,” he quickly spurts, before he awkwardly run-walks to the men’s bathroom a few feet into the hallway. 

Warrick laughs it off, thinking it was something he had eaten, a burrito or one of the cheap breakfasts from the diner they liked to haunt.

He wasn’t aware that Nick hadn’t eaten much of anything in two days. 

* * *

He thinks of his days as a frat boy in college, how either his ass cheeks or face cheeks would be glued to the toilet seat for more hours of his time wasted than the time he wastes in sleeping for the few hours he gets on occasion. 

Thinks of all the hangovers, all the pranks, all the food poisonings he’s had over the years. All of the pain and nausea and sweat and tears.

None of them compare to...whatever is happening now. 

It doesn’t make any sense.

He hasn't been able to keep any food down, so he's basically given up on that for now--everything's been tasteless, anyway, and every texture has been unsatisfactory. The only ingestion in his body has been room temperature water.

Maybe it’s the water. 

He vaguely wonders if he could get a sample for the toxicology tech. Maybe it’s a day shift prank. He did recently find out that one of Ecklie’s CSIs came from one of his university’s rivals. 

Or unintentional contamination. He remembers the small mistake he had made his first week in his microbiology class, how he didn’t sterilize the inoculating loop correctly and ended up missing a week’s worth of classes as a result. 

Did somebody poison the water supply? Is he patient zero?

He’ll change his water source anyway, just in case, but now he feels a sense of responsibility, he should call the store he bought the water from. 

Or rather, stores. Plural. He often grabs a bottle from the gas station, at the checkout, even from vending machines at the gym and lab. It could have come from _anywhere._

His business is done--so he thinks--his body feels truly empty, so empty that his fingers shake, struggling to wad up the sheets of toilet paper from the roll next to him. The walls of the stall seem to box him in, his free hand plasters itself, but then slides down on the cold partition, he tries to push it before it crushes him--

“Yeah...oh, yeah, no, we can totally go there!...Well you name the time, I’m free all day, baby…” a voice pulls him back to reality. Greg’s voice. 

Underneath the layers of his own breathing and Greg’s continuing discussion with what he presumes is a hot date, he hears a zipper unzipping, and a flow of liquid that triggers a stream of his own, one he didn’t even realize he had in him. 

One that _hurts._

He can’t stifle the groan that escapes his mouth, even after he cups a hand over his lips, his tongue meeting the fleshy wall in an instinctive flick over his dried lips. 

“I’m...gonna call you back,” he hears the two halves of the phone snap and watches as a pair of feet approach the stall door. “Hey, uhm, you okay there?”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Nick?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s up, dawg?” 

“Too much to drink,” he lies. Might earn him some street cred with the younger man, he figures, and it does.

“I can whip you up a hangover cure lickity-split,” Greg’s knuckle rapts the closed door with the inflection of his words, earning a sad smile out of Nick. 

“Nah, I think...I think I’ll be okay,” Nick inhales, which is a _mistake._ “Although...Got any cologne on you? You always smell like you do.” 

“A good smell, I hope?” 

“Yeah...it is.”

* * *

His breath is still catching up to him, though he won’t admit it. He hides it and the shame associated with it, like he hides everything else, behind a styrofoam cup of water and the elongated sleeve of his shirt. 

Things went sour during an on foot pursuit. 

He had gotten the wind knocked out of him when he had dared to take the lunge to tackle the escaping suspect. He missed, but not because of anything that impeded him, but rather, he wasn’t fast enough. Didn’t have enough energy. 

He wasn’t enough. 

“Hey, don’t sweat it, man, we ain’t cops,” Warrick had consoled him when he saw him kicking his feet on the pavement. 

“What are we, then?”

“Mad scientists,” Brass chimed in as he passed the two men. He put a hand on Nick’s back, patted him. Nick was unable to stop himself from rocking in the force. “We’ll get this scumbag to booking, meet you in interrogation one.” 

“He almost got away, Rick. All cause I couldn’t....cause I tripped,” Nick had lied. 

“It happens. It’s not about the fall, it’s how you get back up,” Warrick shrugged off.

As his still sweating skin glues to the uncomfortable steel chair, he can’t help but wonder if and when he’ll get back up. 

He adds it to the ever-expanding list of things he doesn’t understand. 

Just weeks before, he had been able to catch up and keep up with two hounds like it was _nothing._

And now with a simple sprint down the block, he falls behind. 

So what changed?

Or had anything changed at all? 

Maybe he had always been this fragile. 

Or maybe he had been cursed. 

And more curses fly from the unruly suspect mouth, and he sits by on the sidelines while Brass and Warrick engage in a verbal warfare. 

He feels guilty, feeling like he hasn’t contributed much to not just this interrogation, but this case at all outside of simple bag and tags, dragging himself around behind Warrick like some trainee, down to the over-sized coats and gear and evidence collection kits that feel twice their normal weight.

He opens his mouth to offer a rebuttal when the suspect starts to target him for his silence, but when he does, it opens a gate for more than just words. 

He manages to make it out into the hallway before the retching begins. 

He falls to his knees, reaches out, he’s just able to pull the short garbage can towards his face before he expels his stomach contents, which somehow seem invisible? He doesn’t understand what he’s even throwing up at this point, maybe it’s just phlegm--although--is that...red, he wonders? 

“Ah!” he cries out, and he feels so stupid, why is he crying? Not like he’s in pa-- _vurp_ \--in.

He retches again, nothing comes out but he can smell the bile steaming from the bin. 

“Nick,” a firm voice calls to him, multiple voices, he can’t identify them, he tries to hold up a hand, to indicate he’s fine, he just needs a minute--

But his hand falls against something, tapping weakly before it falls down to a bottomless pit, landing on something cold, hard--tile, perhaps, but when he lifts it up and it falls back down, it falls back down onto something fleshy. 

A giant hand wraps around his chest, flipping him over, he’s met with an up-close and personal view of Warrick, his face fraught with the same shock and anxiety that freezes Nick in the palm of his hand. Something’s cupped behind his head, more flesh? To examine his face, perhaps, his sunken eyes, clammy skin, his trembling lips.

It’s so embarrassing. 

“Nicky? Where you going, man?” Warrick asks, but Nick’s not moving, not quite, though his eyes seem to be darting--he still can’t see anything but Warrick--searching for something to hold onto as he feels like his body is being shaken by the grip that holds him. 

Warrick’s face blurs, weary tears burning down his cheeks as his body heaves, his head rolling to find the can again--

He doesn’t know if he meets it, but can feel the vomit sliding down the corner of his mouth, sticking to his cheek as the lights turn out, and he’s left motionless, speechless and breathless in a dark void. 

* * *

“Have you come into contact with any hazardous chemicals lately, unprotected?”

“There...was some...uranium at a scene--”

“Uranium?” Flabbergasted, Warrick scrunches his face in confusion. 

“Yeah, ‘member that case I told you about with the garden gnome?”

“That was _weeks_ ago, man! And you’re just doing something about it _now?”_

“It-it was trace amounts! Sanders said it himself, that I’d be fine--” Nick stammers, his eyes wide and glimmering, mouth gaped open as Warrick starts to pace the room. “And I w-wore gloves…”

“It may have come from inhalation,” the doctor notes, and Nick is thrown into a flashback, of how closely he put the cracked gnome to his face, how his nostrils flared, how deeply he had breathed. He can even envision the glowing particles floating into his airway, coating the inner lining of his body. He hears Greg calling out the wavelengths as the colors change, until he lands on the familiar purple tint, yellow glowing sprinkles. 

The scope zooms out, to show his bedazzled lungs. 

He gulps as he returns back to the present.

“I’m going to order some blood work and I’ll need you to provide a urine sample,” the doctor hands Nick a sterile cup. “The nurse will be right back in to collect.”

“I, uhm, don’t have to go,” he mutters meekly. 

“I’ll get you a water from the vending machine,” Warrick nudges him, and leaves the room.

Nick shakes his head, eyes flickering to the Doctor before falling back onto the floor.

“Just tastes like dirt…” he mutters. He hugs his arms to himself, hating how his feet are dangling over the edge of the bed. Makes him feel small. Vulnerable. An odd sense as if he’s dangling in the air, unable to just run away at a moment’s notice. 

He gets an odd sort of deja vu, remembering how he used to whine the minute his parents were out of earshot when he was at the doctor’s office in his youth.

But he's not going to get a lollipop for being "so brave." Instead of the reassuring smile and hand on his shoulder, he’s treated with the callously smug, “done with your bullshit” attitude of a doctor who has no time for childish adults. And Nick really can't be mad at that.

“Well, I suppose we can collect it through other methods. Like a catheter.” 

“...I’ll take the water.”

* * *

“Warrick,” Grissom’s voice seems to hold a small semblance of relief as Warrick interrupts his conversation with Greg, which had seemed to go down the non-work related route from the white noise Warrick filtered out in his rage. “I was just about to call you and Nick on your 419--”

“Oh, you were finally about to call Nick, huh?”

Warrick’s nostrils flare, he puffs his chest and Grissom’s eyes scrutinize this passive aggressive gesture with raised eyebrows. Warrick can feel the surge of testosterone but it’s not as friendly as the release during his basketball game with Nick. 

Greg tries to back away, seemingly sensing . Warrick sticks his arm out and easily captures the man by the scruff of his neck.

“Nah, stick around, Sanders, this concerns you too,” Warrick roughly guides Greg to one of the chairs in front of Grissom’s desk, plops him down before he grips the back of the other. 

“What’s this about, Warrick?” Grissom asks incredulously, swiping the glasses off of his face and tossing them to the desk. 

“Remember that case, few weeks back, Tammy Felton?” 

“Yes, but as I recall...you weren’t on it.” 

“I wasn’t. But I am now--”

“Doesn’t make sense to be, case is closed, isn’t it?” Greg jokes nervously, but Warrick keeps talking over him.

“--Cause from what Nicky told me, there were some trace amounts of uranium on the murder weapon.”

“And?” 

“Nick’s got uranium poisoning!” Warrick tosses the chair on its side, and a tense silence crashes down from the ceiling.

“And--heh--” Warrick chuckles darkly, wiping a hand over his face. “He told me that y’all said he’d be fine! ‘Just a trace amount. Nothing to worry about.’’

“I mean, I wasn’t completely sure--” Greg tries to defend, but Warrick shrinks him into his chair with a sideways glance.

“Oh yes you were, Sanders. You were _damn_ sure, or you would have made his ass go to the hospital. Neither of you have noticed, huh? How thin he’s been getting? How _weaker_ he’s been? And I’m not erasing my blame in this either, cause-cause of course not! Of course we haven’t noticed, cause we all expect Nick to just...be okay. And he’s _not.”_

Warrick balls up his anger in his fists, standing as straight as he can, and waits for Grissom to speak. Greg’s head is hung in shame, he’s definitely done talking. 

But after a few minutes and no words, Warrick gets impatient, and turns to leave the room, weighed with disappointment at his mentor, _their_ mentor that has no guidance to give in this situation.

“What can we do?” Grissom asks, seemingly more to himself than anybody. Warrick’s already out the door when he answers.

“Be there for him.” 

* * *

He had only seen “The Exorcist” once in his life. Barely made it to the end, but he couldn’t risk getting ridiculed by his fraternity brothers when they had attended a re-screening of it.

But one of the images of the macabre horror film that had stuck with him, was when that poor girl had been tied to the bed and twists and turns and spins and vomits and levitates and ruins the very idea of comfort that he used to associate with a bed.

Then again, that association was ruined a long time ago. 

He isn’t tied down, but he’s most certainly writhing, unable to get settled in his aching, throbbing body. The sheets are mangled from his kicking legs, the blanket tangled around his legs. His head thrashing back and forth is doing absolutely _nothing_ to quell the vertigo he hadn’t stopped feeling since his collapse at interrogation.

“Just one sip, honey, c’mon,” Catherine goads.

“No, Mom, I can’t…” Nick groans in protest, but the bottle is pushed up against him, and he nearly chokes on the smallest sip he could allow in. 

It feels and tastes like lava.

Not that he knows what lava tastes like, but if he has to take a guess, this was it.

“See, not so hard.”

Nick grunts in response, wondering if she had caught his mistake of identifying her as his mother--she is certainly doing more than she needs to in comforting him, stroking his hair, tucking him in, coaxing him to take medicine and eat and drink. 

He can’t help the feeling of being infantilized even if he understands that she’s just trying to help. 

“Feel better, Nicky,” she presses a soft kiss to his forehead before she leaves the room, and his darting eyes discover Warrick standing by, ready to take the next shift in watching over him. 

He doesn’t seem too bothered by it, even has a shit-eating grin on his face with a gleam of mischief in his eyes.

“What?” 

“You called Cath ‘Mom,’ bro.”

“Oh, yeah...” Nick’s face screws up with a muted whine, and Warrick’s laughter fades into genuine concern. 

“It’s okay, man, it happens,” Warrick soothes him, sitting on the edge of the bed. He puts a hand on Nick’s blanketed leg.

“It’s not okay!” Nick sniffles. “I’m gonna die and all Cath’s gonna remember is how I called her ‘Mom’ on my deathbed.”

“You are not gonna _die,_ stop being so dramatic. It’s-It’s like you have a stomach bug or something.”

“You mean a _swarm_ of bugs. Eating me alive from the inside. Spreading like...like…”

_Cancer._

“Nicky, buddy, the oncologist told you, you’re in the clear on that, and it was just a small amount--”

“Not what you told Grissom and Greg,” Nick scoffs.

“How’d you know about that?”

“Sara n’ Greg stopped by last night, after you went back to the lab. Dropped those off,” Nick thumbs towards the pile of dirty magazines hidden under the takeout box that Sara had brought. Some sort of unflavored rice. Something bland.

Yet it smells bad and has long since gone cold. 

“Tch, Sanders,” Warrick shakes his head. “Look, man, I was just worried…”

“I know.” 

“I do think you should try to eat something.” 

“I...I can’t keep anything down,” Nick tearfully groans. 

“I know, I know, but you gotta try. Just a cracker, one cracker,” Warrick digs his hand into a box, the wrapper crinkles and so does Nick’s face in a tight grimace, pursing his lips shut. “Can’t have you wasting away on me, how am I gonna do all this work by myself?”

“You wouldn’t have to worry ‘bout savin’ me no more,” Nick mumbles. He pulls the blanket up and covers his head.

“Hey, Nicky,” Warrick’s tone hardens. “I know we joke about it all the time but you ain’t a damsel in distress. A _dumbass_ in distress sometimes, yeah, but seems to me like there is some sort of a self preservation instinct in you. Or you wouldn’t still be here.”

He allows a muffled chuckle to shake the fibers of the blanket. 

“Alright. Well, I gotta bounce but I’mma be back later, okay? I want you to eat one--no, know what? Eat _half_ of a damn cracker. I’ll settle for that.”

He feels a hand fall on top of the blanket and it’s pulled away from his face, despite Nick’s attempt to keep it clutched in his fists. 

“Hey-- _hey--_ Promise me,” Warrick holds up his compromised half a cracker. Nick’s shaking fingers accept it, and shove it into his mouth.

“Swallow,” Warrick instructs, his head tilted, eyes raised. 

Half spitefully, and half because he was truly, admittedly hungry, Nick chews and swallows the barely salted, not even full bit sized cracker. 

He can feel it dissolve in his stomach. 

“I want you to eat more of those if you can. Alright? I’ll come back to check on you.”

“What about the case?” Nick croaks. 

“Don’t worry about the case. I’ll take care of it. You take care of _yourself,_ okay?” 

Nick nods before his eyes find sudden interest in the individual threads of his blanket. In one final gesture, Warrick pulls him in for a quick embrace.

Nick doesn’t want it to end, but Warrick breaks away and leaves him in solitude. 

He tries to sleep, but sleep never comes so easy for him regardless of the intrusive thoughts running in his mind. The voices calling to him, yelling at him, that he deserves this. This is some sort of punishment. He’s not enough, he’ll never be enough. He’s weak. A pushover. Small, easy to defeat. 

Life is short enough and he’s the runt of the litter. 

Doomed to suffer, no matter how hard he tries to be a good CSI, be a good _person._

Kind, empathetic. In touch with his emotions. The same emotions that make him vulnerable, easy to take advantage of.

It hurts his heart to dare ask the question, is he taking advantage of his friends’ kindness, when there’s the chance he won’t survive this? 

Or is he just being overly dramatic, as Warrick had told him? 

He should probably drink some water. Coach always told him that dehydration was essentially draining his brain water.

There was a reason that the coach wasn’t a science major like he was.

But he did have some truth to his words, even if they were misguided. 

He rolls in the bed to the other side, inching closer to the table that is littered with bottles of water--fresh, filtered water, and he is about to reach out for a bottle when something whispers to him. 

Just a single voice, reminding him that no amount of water is going to fix this.

He wants to fire back, that yes, you’re right, water isn’t the final answer but it’s the first step in the solution--time is the real answer, he’s just going to have to wait this one out.

Easier said than done, in the face of an assault on his brain, on his senses in his weakened state, screaming at him that it doesn’t matter.

None of this matters. 

“Stop,” he cries out in a plea to the voices. He curls into himself, his hands claw at the top of his head, clutching his hair and pulling yet again--when this is over, he should just shave it all off, it does nothing but _itch_ at him like the nagging thoughts beating his inner self down, down, down, again and again and again--

A loud ringing breaks him out of the shrinking sensation, he does his best effort to compose himself before he answers. 

“Sssstokes,” he rasps out, drawing out each individual letter through the sticking needles in his trachea. 

“Mr. Stokes? This is Doctor Smith.”

“H-hey, Doc.”

“I understand you usually work the night-shift, I apologize for the timing of my call.”

“‘S alright. So...what’s the verdict?”

“A good one. You’ll be back on your feet in no time, just take it easy, alright?” 

“You’re sure?” 

“Positive. The level you were exposed to is, like you said, a trace amount. You’re in the worst of it now, just keep drinking water and keep urinating, and it’ll leave your body in no time.”

Nick once again eyes the bottle of water on the nightstand. Large, imposing, the bones in his body crinkle like the plastic as he wraps a shaky hand around it.

He’s shocked when his entire hand wraps around the bottle, he didn’t think it was big enough to do that. He takes a moment to stare at just how _long_ his fingers are, having momentarily forgotten they were his. 

“Give me a call if the symptoms worsen, we’ll see you in your follow-up in two weeks, okay, Mr. Stokes?”

“Okay,” Nick’s lower lip trembles, his heart falling with relief, a shaky breath released that he had kept trapped in his lungs. 

The phone disconnects and he returns to the still silence in his bedroom.

He brings the bottle closer to his face, his vision pulsing, he feels as if the bottle’s expanding out of his grip. He tosses his phone aside and pulls the other hand up to assist his grip.

He needs to drink the water. 

He knows that. 

But the sea of sloshing of colorless, odorless liquid is going to burn his throat if he drinks it, like it did before. Disturb the bile daring to leap out of his throat. Stir the swirling pot of stomach acid that is a heavy stone, keeping him pinned to the bed.

His legs are horribly cramped under the pressure, he doesn’t dare look down to see if his toes had actually curled up to his knees, if his calves had split apart.

Instead, he looks at his phone, which is ringing with yet another call. 

He doesn’t mind, he sets the bottle back on the table, allows one more ring while he checks the caller ID.

“H-hey, boss,” he answers shakily. “Sorry, I-I know I haven’t called--” 

“It’s okay, Nicky, my boy,” an uncharacteristically soft voice answers. It somehow scares him more than the voices swirling in his own head. “I just...wanted to check in on you. See how you’re feeling.”

His breath hitches in a gulping sob. 

“Not so good,” he admits, knowing he wouldn’t be able to get away with lying to Grissom, even over the phone. 

“Listen, I wanted to tell you…”

Silence prevails, he can almost picture Grissom on the other line, his lips puckered in perplexion, the social hamster not quite understanding how to run on the wheel. 

“Make sure you drink enough fluids, okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick coughs, his eyes hyperfocusing on the molecules of water that might as well be something as volatile as ether. 

“I mean it, Nicky. Can’t have one of my best CSIs on the bench for too long.”

Nick’s eyes would pop out of their sockets if they had gotten any wider.

Grissom clears his throat.

“Take your time. Keep me updated on when you’re ready to come back.”

“W-will do, boss.” 

_Thank God I didn’t call him ‘Dad.’_

The phone falls from the fingers that reach once more for the heaviest bottle in the world. 

He brings the bottle to his lips, groaning as he lifts his head. The plastic is unforgiving against his chapped flesh, but he allows a gentle dribble of fluid into his mouth. He lets it sit, his tongue slapping it around against the confines of his mouth, before he swallows.

He takes another sip. 

It’s never tasted so good.


End file.
